Taika Waititi’s Thor: The Dark World, and it made Thor (Chris Hemsworth) the most interesting character in a franchise where Loki (Tom Hiddleston) had been the biggest scene-stealer. Though the film is filled with jokes and thrilling action sequences, Thor: Ragnarok has a deeply political and important message about colonization that Waititi weaves into the backstory and the main plot.
Thor: Ragnarok begins with Thor’s fight against Surtur (voiced by Clancy Brown), who is prophesied to bring Ragnarok, the destruction of Thor’s homeworld of Asgard. In the film’s cold open, Thor defeats Surtur and removes his crown, which will bring about Ragnarok when united with the Eternal Flame on Asgard. The main plot follows Thor and Loki’s conflict with Hela (Cate Blanchett) after she conquers Asgard, and Thor and Loki get lost on the prison planet Sakaar. When Thor returns to face Hela, he concludes that he must intentionally cause Ragnarok in order to defeat her. The film ends with Thor watching the total destruction of his home planet, safely aboard a ship carrying Asgard’s refugees.
On the surface, Thor: Ragnarok is a simple action-comedy, and it’s easy to dismiss the film as just another quippy comic book movie. However, when Hela explains how Asgardian society was formed and when Thor decides to cause the destruction of his home, Thor: Ragnarok reveals a much deeper meaning.
Thor: Ragnarok Reveals Asgard’s Colonial Past
After she conquers Asgard, Hela surveys the ceiling tableaux in the throne room that depict Asgard’s history and foundation. She suggests that these images, which portray peace treaties and a beneficent Odin (Anthony Hopkins), present a whitewashed version of history. She smashes the ceiling, revealing another tableau underneath, and a more sinister version of Asgardian lore emerges. “We were unstoppable,” she says. “I was [Odin’s] weapon in the conquest that built Asgard’s empire.” According to Hela, after her ambition for conquest outpaced Odin’s, she was banished and caged.
Hela’s description of Asgard’s foundation parallels the process of colonization. An institutionally and technologically advanced force conquers a smaller, less advanced people or territory, plundering it for its resources. Examples in world history include the original colonization of the United States and Canada against the indigenous Native American tribes, the raiding of African nations resulting in the African diaspora, and the invasion of Waititi’s home country of New Zealand against the Māori. In fact, Waititi’s own father was a Māori farmer.
That Asgard’s riches are the result of a colonial empire creates what post-colonial theorists like Homi K. Bhabha describe as a culture of “hybridity.” For Bhabha, colonization is not locked in the past, but its effects reverberate throughout the present culture, resulting in two conflicting identities forming in both the colonized and colonizers – a hybrid identity. Subjugated peoples must live in the present, but in many ways they remain affected by the painful past. For the colonizers, ethical of the dominating cultures must reckon with their violent history. This presents a thorny ethical question: how do you live in a society that originated with violence and subjugation?
What Thor Ragnarok Says Heroes Should Do
In Thor: Ragnarok’s cold open, Thor lays out his plan for preventing Ragnarok and says, “That’s what heroes do.” But during the film’s climax, when he’s confronted with the difficult ethical question of how to square Asgard’s colonial, violent past with the present, his answer is to cause Ragnarok – a option even more heroic than defeating Surtur.
He concludes that “Asgard’s not a place; it’s a people.” He tells Loki: “This was never about stopping Ragnarok. This was about causing Ragnarok.” Thor and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) occupy Hela in combat while Loki places Surtur’s crown on the Eternal Flame. Their plan brings about the destruction of their planet and by extension a primary participant in Asgard’s colonial efforts, Hela.
When Thor states that Hela is getting more powerful the longer she stays on Asgard, this is analogous to the dominant colonizing force continuing to reap the benefits of colonial plunder. His decision to preserve the good people of Asgard and sacrifice the place suggests that reconciling colonization’s evils sometimes means that a wholesale destruction and reformation of the culture is necessary. Though within Thor: Ragnarok’s plot this is just the heroes defeating the villain, thematically this is a radical response to the problems of colonization.
Thor Ragnarok and the MCU Are Political
Altogether, political action is all over Thor: Ragnarok. Avengers: Endgame. Even in the film’s B-plots and sequels, there are parallels to the history of colonization and instances of political action.
And Thor: Ragnarok isn’t the only film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to tackle questions of colonization. Kilmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) final words: “Just bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships, because they knew death was better than bondage.” Also, Shuri (Letitia Wright) even calls Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) a “colonizer” when he inadvertently sneaks up on her. T’Challa’s (Chadwick Boseman) decision to open Wakanda to the outside world resolves the colonial question differently compared to Thor: Ragnarok. For T’Challa, it’s up to the dominant culture to help the less fortunate, and colonization’s violent past doesn’t necessitate that culture’s complete destruction.
Thor: Ragnarok is really about the colonial and post-colonial condition, and it raises difficult ethical questions. The wholesale destruction of the dominant society – as seen in Thor’s decision to cause Ragnarok – is a simplistic and radical answer to the complex problems of colonization. But even though it’s possible to condemn the film for this simplicity, Waititi still deserves praise for even posing the issues of colonization in a genre that is popularized for its quips and action sequences. The humor and suspense of Thor: Ragnarok make it fun and enjoyable, but its willingness to explore fundamental societal questions makes it profound.
